Chapter 8

A week after I’d got back to Seattle, I had dinner with Niamh at our favorite sushi place in Capitol Hill. Niamh had just bought herself a car after working all summer at our uncle Henry’s auto shop, and she showed the car to me like it was her new kid.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” Niamh brushed a hand down the side of her Volkswagen that had to be three times older than she was. “The second I saw her, I knew she’d be mine.”

“Did you help fix her up?”

“Duh. Put in a new transmission, brakes, everything. I wouldn’t let anyone touch her, except for when Uncle Henry got mad at me for messing with the engine. He said I didn’t know what I was doing and could’ve gotten hurt.”

I wished Niamh were less like me, but Christ Almighty she was just as stubborn and impulsive. As a toddler, I had to buy a leash to keep her from running into traffic. I’d got a reputation in town for being the teenager who took his sister out for walks like a dog.

As the years passed, Niamh hadn’t lost that willfulness.